Infinitas Via
by Xtase
Summary: "... Just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on.", wise words from a dead man. Naruto decides to move on too, before he dies and dries into a fragile husk from Itachi's shameless neglect. AU.
1. prologo

I hereby declare that I claim no rights to **NARUTO © 1999 by Kishimoto Masashi/SHUEISHA Inc. **and receive no monetary benefit for any narrative I publish hereafter based on this manga or any of its other media adaptations.

Warnings are in place for slash (male on male coupling), strong language, violence and mature themes.

-Xtase

...

PROLOGO

AMOR LITTERAS

...

.

Well now

If little by little you stop loving me

I shall stop loving you

Little by little

If suddenly you forget me

Do not look for me

For I shall already have forgotten you

If you think it long and mad the wind of banners that passes through my life

And you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots

Remember

That on that say, at that hour, I shall lift my arms

And my roots will set off to seek another land.

.

**Pablo Neruda**

...

Dear Itachi,

I never got used to how pretty your eyes are. That's why I always stared at you like a creepo whenever we kissed. I couldn't _not_ look at them, their shape under your eyelids - _everything _about you. From the very start.

In the beginning, I always used to ask myself why I liked you. Or rather, the right words to describe my affection for you. What could I call the feeling that made rub your back as slow and gentle as I could in the morning? Exactly what was it about your feel that made me feel all tingly inside? And when you turned to crack your eye open at me, why did I silently thank your father, your mother, for creating you?

Am I weird for liking another guy this way? I used to wonder that. Maybe I am. I admit I was scared to admit it inside my own head, say it to myself, to you. Why I liked stroking the bridge of your nose while you read Lao Tzu on my couch, lying there on my lap. Looking at _you _for hours and hours, trying to have my fill of you, the sight of you.

You always say your face is boring, but it's not. Unlike a lot of beautiful people, you have character in your appearance. You don't look like you just hopped out fully-formed from a magazine, like they do. Your face looks matured by experience, _lived in_. But now your window eyes are boarded up and your mouth won't speak to me.

All those dips and creases, they make your intimidating beauty softer, more inviting. And charming. I didn't - I don't know why you only see them as signs of age.

I used to think you took things too seriously, I didn't like to see you worry. That little _frown_ that pops up on your forehead when you think too hard used to bug the shit out of me. So that's why I poked and pressed it with my forefinger, _flattening_ it away. And it used to make you laugh

You used to laugh. You used to care.

If I could travel back to that time, I'd kick myslef in the ass, because I didn't know how fucking _lucky _I was.

I know it's selfish, but right now I'd rather see you in pain than indifferent. I'd rather see your face all careworn and riddled with wrinkles, instead of that ugly stretch of perfect skin. I don't know if you love me - hell I won't even mind that much if you hated me... but spare me your indifference, like I'm nothing but dirt.

I used to think you were a really great guy. I thought I knew, I thought I could tell.

You used to watch me water all my house plants instead of watching TV. And you let me hang upside down like a monkey from those glossy exposed rafters in your swanky apartment. You just gave me these soft little upside-down kisses instead of getting mad.

Maybe I really had been able to tell; maybe your kindness had been real, back then.

Remember all those times you found me waiting outside your apartment door? And how many more times you found my sprawled on your couch, greasing up your kitchen after you finalky gave me the spare key? I couldn't help sneaking inyo your place, even when I knew you weren't home. Just the fact that you lived there, I was breathing your air was enough for me. I just... craved for you do much.

So much that I even found myself drawn to men I passed on the street who looked like you. I was even attracted to your little brother. And even though that's so inappropriate, I couldn't help it, you're like twins. You share the same blood, so part of what makes you _you_, must be inside him too.

Your direct replica. But without your softness and warmth. There's no delighful creases in his cheeks to dull the impact of his beauty. His face is stunning and _naked_. His hair's always so shaggy and wild, his eyes aren't gentle or caring, they're wide and sharp. His colouring's a lot colder than yours as well - you may be pale but he's _white_, and his hair looks blue in bright light.

Unlike you, he's _out there_. He's shamelessly arrogant, and he's a perverted bastard, and a total asshole, but unlike you, he doesn't hide his faults and vulgarity under a _mask._ Sasuke is a lot of bad things, but he isn't a liar. I wish you could have been as up front, like "what you see is what you get, if you don't like it, piss off", it would have saved us both _a lot _of time.

Then I wouldn't have gotten to the point of adoring you so much I keep your picture in my wallet. I'm looking at it right now. You're wearing that ribbed turtleneck in it, the one that's this deep red wine colour that brings out your eyes. And your hair was tied up really loose that day, so the strands kept drifting in the wind with the red autumn leaves.

We ended up having sex in the front seat of your car half an hour later. You even had to take it to the autoshop afterwards because we rocked it so much the suspension got messed up.

And I remember always telling you how I didn't like it when you left town. I lied. I hated it. Because I couldn't be with you, because you got me addicted with your sleepovers. As long as I could see your shape when I opened my eyes and felt your body heat when they were closed - as long as that happened, I was all right.

But as soon as you left, I kind of became all discombobulated. Every night my sleep would get thinner and thinner, andbit would get harder and harder to doze off. By the time a week passed by, I couldn't catch a wink in my own bed anymore because by then your smell on my couch cushions and on my mattress and under my skin was almost completely gone.

So I had to change my habits, I had to _adapt_ to my new Itachi-centred _life_. At first I just used to drive to your apartment instead of my home when I got off work. And as I parked my car in your slot I felt the skin on my cheeks _stretching_ because I was grinning so _wide_. 'Cause I knew I was gonna sleep _good_ that night.

The first time I entered your apartment, the smell and the feel, the _sleepiness _hit me with a wallop. I didn't even care when I woke up cold and tangled on the daybed, or better yet your plush carpet, beacause I wasn't tired on top of being lovesick anymore.

During those long lonely days, I found myself constantly cursing your fastidious neatness. You never left any unwashed laundry behind for me to sneak back to my house. I tried digging in your cupboards for your cologne, spraying one of your clean shirts, _inhaling_, but it wasn't the same, it wasn't _enough_. So I had to think of a new strategy, _evolve_ to cope. And seven months into our relationship I found the trick.

That was why I'd started visiting you at your place the night before your departures. Lure you into having sex; a parting gift as I called it. But that wasn't my entire purpose, I had a hidden agenda. When I told you to keep your shirt on because I thought it was hot, I wasn't lying, it just happened to serve my purposes as well. So I could swipe your sweated-up wife beater, to keep under my pillow, hug in my fingers, wear on my torso, so I wouldn't be left with nothing.

That's why I asked to move in with you, and I was so happy you said yes. Dear _God_, I was so in love with you. And I thought you loved me, too. You said you did.

Were you lying?

But I guess if I've reached the point of writing you something like this, then the answer doesn't matter, does it? None of this matters, _I _don't matter, not to you. So I'm sorry for wasting your time, wasting your life. I don't know what I did for it to turn out this way, truly, I don't.

I don't even know why I'm doing this; I'm no good with words, I'm not articulate, I don't know why I'm still here, _trying _to get my feelings to reach you one last time. It's not like it's gonna work. And _we're _not gonna work. So why do I still bother, to explain, when you won't do the same for me? Why am I writing this long, horrible confession, _here_ in what used to be our home, _why am I still here_?

I just... can't take any more.

.

That's all I can write. After two years, six months, four days, it ends, quietly on a sheet of saffron paper. Covered in my scribbles and crossed-out sentences and this weird purple ink that's smudged in some places, because of my tears.

But I'm not a crybaby. This isn't real. I'm not sitting here with the sun burning my back with my eyes all red and puffy.

I don't have my bags sitting expectantly in the foyer, no secretly-signed transfer letter slumbers in my attache case, no plane ticket lies on the clean marble island: one-way. Present to future, to hell but not back.

I haven't made my choice. I won't ever leave. Itachi still loves me.

.


	2. unum

I hereby declare that I claim no rights to **NARUTO © 1999 by Kishimoto Masashi/SHUEISHA Inc. **and receive no monetary benefit for any narrative I publish hereafter based on this manga or any of its other media adaptations.

Warnings are in place for slash (male on male coupling), strong language, violence and mature themes.

-Xtase

...

UNUM

LACEROS

...

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Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of greiving. You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing...

.

**Elizabeth Gilbert**

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Tuesday, October 15th:

It takes nine hours to fly from Konoha to Kumo. Five hours I spend feeling my heart-walls caving because it's cracking and breaking into sharp pottery pieces. I can almost _hear _them... tinkling so quietly, violently like a fly trapped in a crystal spiderwebs on a windy day. All because I'm trying to focus on the grief itself and not its _cause_.

And I thank god this is an overnight flight, that the people are asleep, and no one can see me choke on my own phlegm.

I've been trying to hold back the tears, but the dam is cracking, and my eye sockets are swelling with them. They'll come out, I know they will, they'll gush out of me and flood the hold, drown the people, sink the plane to the bottom of the ocean. That's what will happen, my sleep-deprived, fizzy mind is sure of it.

Nothing helps except the moist towelette covering my eyes. All it does is get hot and cook my eyeballs into hard-boiled eggs. It's driving me crazy, but the discomfort is a good distraction. From the reason I'm here, now, doing _this_. Running away... from everything.

When I think of what will happen if I ever leave this plane, my mind goes blank. I see nothing, no daydreams or fantasies plastered over my eyelids. I might as well be hurtling off the end of the world, into the cornsilk cloud abyss. No future, no solid ground, just cracked, peeling _time_.

The next thing I know, I'm pressing my forehead against the round-cornered rectangle of my window, and groaning. Waking up the dead, shivering against the frigid glass and clenching my lungs red-tight. And I look so fucking scary, with my eyes looking like boiled sweets. I look like a sallow ghost, swimming in the indigo ocean beyond my phantom form.

The moonlight is sparklingon its waves in a peaceful way that makes me evious. It's so heart-smashingly beautiful I can't think. I can't breathe, I could just _die_ looking at that fat white disc in the sky, hanging so much closer than usual. Watching over me, I think. Watching me live, and not cry.

I don't cry but I sob, in little dry pants. Looking at the pulverized skin of my lips in my reflection, the mouth opens and shutting like a fish, gasping for air... I feel so pathetic.

I'm gasping for strength. If I break down now, the sight of my own tear tracks shining in the moonlight will kill me, kill the me that's worth saving. I'll just collapse and buckle in, go back to _that_... to not living and slowly fading. And then I'll disappear into the fabric like nothing.

All I can think is _pleasepleaseplease_ while I try to kiss the moon through the glass. It stings because my lips are chapped and splitting open.

And I'm begging, silently begging for _something_, hoping that maybe this time it'll work. Before I know it, I think I fall asleep, with the moon-eye watching me.

.

I _must _have been sleeping. The silent sun-needles are pricking my eyes, I'm seeing darts of orange. And the guy next to me must be thinking I'm quite the idiot to fall asleep on a non-existent windowsill.

And I realise this is the first time in years I've slept beside a man who wasn't Itachi.

_Sssssss..._

Stupid. Thinking about him... so stupid.

I can already feel my innards being blitzed, torn to shreds of glowing crushed glass and pulp.

It's nauseating, humiliating, so very painful. And it just vexes me completely, I want to boil over. And later on in the bathroom I do, I retch it all up, the tainted fuits of Konoha. And then my brain decides that this is the right moment to cough up a few memories, the worst.

Boxers and panties and used flavoured condoms laying on the ground that had fuckall to do with me.

And that sleepy blue water in the bowl creeps me the hell out. _I _creep me out. I look like a warmed-up zombie in the mirror. How could my eyes turn to bruised, pruny pits and my cheeks hollow out like this in only _one fucking night_? It doesn't make sense.

And you know what else makes no sense? That the man who says he loves me has driven me to this, reduced me to this mess, to the point that I'm thanking the lord I don't have to show up for my new job for another week.

When the plane finally lands and I get to disembark, the air still feels too thin for me. It's too fresh and clear in my congested stuffy lungs, it pisses me off. If my bones weren't so heavy and stiff I would kick something.

So I collect my bags and bundle them into a taxi, and give the driver the directions to one of Sasuke's many safehouses scattered across who the hell knows how many countries.

That guy may be a prick, but he's a useful prick, who cares in his own blunt way. And he knows better than to breathe a word of this to his asshole brother. I'll make him hurt if he does.

The house is tall and narrow, at the base of one of the famous Kumo mountains. There's a three car garage, but I don't need it right now, since my car is gone, pawned off less than forty eight hours ago.

Anything I couldn't carry, I left behind. I don't care what _he_ does to them, with _himself_, or with his _sluts_, as long as he doesn't do anything more to me.

I don't want to deal with any more of this. I just want to open the front door, toss my heavy shit in, toss _myself _in, and _crash_. Crash and burn like a mangled car wreck that either consumes everything or leaves it unrecignizable.

_I_ want to be unrecognizable. I want to change into something molded by my own force. I want to look at _him_ one day and think _who the fuck is that?_ You don't know me. Not anymore.

_Finally, after hours and hours. I will never write two chapters in a day ever again (unless I one day become some sort of literary pro and can construct a correspondence in my sleep). I think I'll go to bed, now. See you next chapter..._


	3. interlude I

I hereby declare that I claim no rights to **NARUTO © 1999 by Kishimoto Masashi/SHUEISHA Inc. **and receive no monetary benefit for any narrative I publish hereafter based on this manga or any of its other media adaptations.

Warnings are in place for slash (male on male coupling), strong language, violence, and mature themes.

-Xtase.

...

INTERLUDE

NATUS AD CAEDERE

...

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"Did I really want to stay on this road longer, knowing it was only going to end in devastation?"

**Becca Fitzpatrick, **_**Crescendo**_

.

He plunges into her without mercy, gripping her viciously, rocking his hips savagely. All he feels is a rough, brutal swell of unformed _feeling_.

And she's weeping in pleasure at the feel of him, his cock _peircing _her womb, stroking so deep. A shuddering mess of voluptuous flesh, utterly luscious, her red face planted in the mattress, utterly beautiful. Her bluish hair has come out of its bun, and then he comes out of her, with an obscene slicking sound. She whimpers at the loss.

No matter how beautifully disguised, filth is still filth. That is what he thinks as he watches her fellate him. And he cannot believe that Yahiko fell in love with this woman, who gave in to his advances with barely any resistance. And Konan's amber eyes glow glassy as she lowers her dripping cunt onto his swollen manhood. It feels...too good. He closes his eyes, and loses his memory to those moist, tender womb-walls. And holds her.

His mind refuses to even acknowledge what is making him do this. But, for a time, he forgets it anyway. He forgets the sight of that loathsome piece of jaundice-coloured paper, burning and curling in his ashtray into a plie of flimsy ash. And the acrid _smell _of it befouling his nostrils with its feeble tendrils.

Because it is finally at a close, his glory and his torment. The never-ending secrets, hidden in sweeping motions of his donning of tailored jackets. The planes and angles of his back, his face, stroked lustfully and in adoration, by too many hands. He is fine to live under his curse alone in his own universe. He may be an odd, ambivalent creature but on this he is firm; he wishes to hurt no one.

He is never one for force, nor pressure, unless it is truly unavoidable - necessary. And this is not one of those times.

He is a fatalist, he will not refuse kismet, not this time. He knows of its pointlessness. It will all result in his now-ex's suffering and total destruction. He has laid his own bed, and now is resigned to lie in it.

And he will lie in its black satin sheets, lie with his luxuriant women and his luscious men. He rules the bedroom with his glowing stare, fluttering eyelids and a crooking finger, enticing his victims to come, to _come_. To let him be a reason for living, for dying, for ruination and downfall. Speaking without moving his lips, gazing without the eyes, dancing without moving his legs. He welcomes fate's intimate gropings with open arms, and open thighs, ever observant open eyes.

He has nothing to say because he has things to do. Like doing this woman here, giving her delight, delirium, multiple orgasms, his sultry _magic_. His terrible addictive spell, masterfully woven.

And most horrifying of all, he does this unconciously, _instinctively_. His mind knows not, but his soul does. It knows his role, and it plays it well, his role is to silence pride and invoke all-consuming, terrible love, devotion, _obsession_.

Such is the omen that is he.

.

_How do you like Itachi? For this fic, I have decided to play up the ominous implications of his name, and his dark side._

_I know people love to think of him as a perfect, nice guy, but his character still has deep flaws, massacre or not. And like it or not, he does have his vices. At the end of the day, Itachi is an embodiment of foreboding, a harbinger of misfortune and evil, bringer of ruin and death. That is his role._

_As in the manga, here Itachi does not seek to cause suffering, but is compelled to inflict it because of circumstance. And in this fic his unavoidable burden is his very nature, his inherent character which he cannot change. So prepare for some deep shit._

_Peace._


	4. duo

I hereby declare that I claim no rights to **NARUTO © 1999 by Kishimoto Masashi/SHUEISHA Inc. **and receive no monetary benefit for any narrative I publish hereafter based on this manga or any of its other media adaptations.

Warnings are in place for slash (male on male coupling), graphic sexual content, violence, strong language and mature content.

-Xtase

...

DUO

HYSTERICUS

...

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Moving on is easy. It's staying moved on that's trickier.

**Katerina Stoykova Klemer**

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Wednesday, October 16th:

I think I've been shivered. Because all my insides seem like they've been violently separated into parts.

There's my guts, twisted limp around the big curved lamp that bends over the sofa. See? They're cooking and drying out on the brushed steel of that lampshade.

Which guts exactly, you ask; courage, entrails? Whichever meaning of the word, they're both my vitals, and they're searing into a long sausage rope for the buzzards from Gehenna to gorge on.

And my heart's clogged up the waste disposal unit in the sink. It's been rived open, with bloodless violence (like the way someone's words, or lack of them, can just _kill _you), it's like a Pandora's box.

What's spilling out, in a swarm; the ills and spites I'm cursed to suffer because I'm a man. And they've spread around the room.

There's Decay under the floating staircase, Ruin squatting patiently between the slats of the wooden blinds. Tragedy sits in the empty coffee cup over there, on that little round table that's more like a desk. Dozens more that I'm too exhausted to take notice of.

The only imp missing is Foreboding, bless that little creature.

Right now, I couldn't give a fuck about hope, it's _hope_ that led me into this mess. I say mankind could do with foreboding; it would save a lot of us from doing stupid shit, getting hurt because we think that something as paper-thin as _hoping_ will magically make things turn out _right_.

It doesn't. Hope won't save you; it won't protect you; it just serenely stands aside and watches when Lady Luck decides to step up and bitch-slap you in the face. Faith and hope don't mean shit if the stars don't favour you. Anyone who beleives in it is crazy.

Or they just want to go down smiling.

.

Friday, October 18th:

I don't know which is worse, the times I feel so sorry for myself that I don't think of Itachi, or the times I feel so sorry for myself that I can't keep my mind off him.

It's my third day of self-imposed exile in Kumo, it's sunset. An autumn sunset. What's more heartbreaking? The fact that I've been missing out on this calibre of loveliness my whole life, or the fact that my eyes are still blocked from it by misty, unshed tears?

My eyes are cloudy like the mountain. I can see it now, so clearly. The balcony at at the living room on the top floor juts out towards it.

It's an tangy orange mist; stained with the blood of a dying day. The sun is setting in front of me, a small bit to the right, where the twin cone-peaks of the mountain meet. I can't believe how far away, and far _above_ it's happening from me. I feel so short and green and young, in the face of all that hot golden _redness_. I'm right there, on the balcony behind the house, but I can't believe that I'm watching it all happen.

It's the first time I've ventured to the outdoors since I first stumbled in and collapsed on the hard wood floor. On my knees, with eye-watering force. I remember thinking _I'm always on my knees, groveling even though he doesn't __**want**__ me to, he doesn't want to __**see**__, and now he can't see anymore._

I remember dry-heaving right there. Thank god there was nothing in me to hock _up._

I haven't had much in the last couple of days but dry toast and black coffee. My body can't seem to take anything heavier. The skin over my knuckles are beginning to glow a soft, creamy gold. I can feel my hipbones chafe against my belt everytime I move. As if I've lost a little... _layer_. At night I stroke my oddly concave belly and marvel at it. Am I... pining?

_For you I pine, for you I blossom. _

But I'm withering, too. My body is wasting.

And I'm torn. Inside I'm literally split in two, seperated by difference, _distant_ feelings; my soul that exalts and my heart which is inconsolable. Why does it always feel like I'm ripping apart in some irreparable way? Why, despite myself, do I like the cosy solitudude of this red-drenched deck, but still wish I could share this with _him_?

My cup slips out of my hand in shock, it falls and falls and explodes, with a shrill reproach of a _snap_ as it hits the pavement below.

I'm shocked to find I've already betrayed myself, with my mind-films of Itachi slipping his hand into mine and nuzzling my hair, and smiling into the tufts, against the tufts.

I'm shocked because _I fucking feel_ the pressure, the heady lover-smell, the simple _warmth_.

And I just start sinking, my body, my tummy, _plummeting_, while my lover's spirit soars.

It's sharp and loud and blood-curdling, but me all the same; I start screaming. Swollen, corpulent, scarlet-boil screams. It breaks the silence, breaks my heart, and breaks the cracky flimsy dams. And for the first time, the boiling, foaming rapids burst out.

All I can do is fling my arms out and grip the horizontal wooden bars of the railing to keep from sweeping, weeping away. And my cheeks, my nose, the chest of my blue smock, they're all sopping wet.

I can't even sit up, I lie like a twisted puppet on the diagonal decking, with my bony hips and elbows digging painfully into the floor. And my body curls in on itself, into a bony bucky-ball of sharp angles and smooth tears. I'm choking, I'm dripping, I'm burning in hot oily fire.

The mist is sneaking down the mountain now, bearing down on me... and I'm scared it'll eat me. I'm scared whatever's inside me will eat me.

I can see its amber puffs crawling up my ankles, and I snatch them away, tear my fingers away, manage to sit at last. And I rock to and fro, and my brain rattles in my head. Shrinking and cringing away from my skull, diminishing my wits, my sense, my _sanity_ in the process.

The mist is turning grey; the sun has gone, the moon has yet to rise. So the mist will swallow me into the darkness.

A strangled cry escapes me; because I'm so fucking afraid. With the last of my strength I flex my tight, creaking muscles and scuttle backwards through the open door, into the safety of the living room. I tumble backwards in a sprawling heap.

.

I've started dreaming of him. We're always naked. He always touches me, with lips, with fingers, with cock and tongue and satin hair. Sometimes he comes near my ear and unleashes the sweetest syrup-words in his warm toffee voice.

They drive my eyes up into my head. But he does nothing more.

I dream so frequently because I fall asleep at the oddest times, throughout the day, on many occasions. And _he _plagues them all. It really pisses me off when I wake up in a stiff-backed kitchen chair, with a bellyache and tight pants, feeling like utter _filth_.

And that's why I shower so often too. Twice, thrice, four-sometimes-five times in a day, I limp to the palatial bathroom with my balls thudding and my dick on fire.

I always have to jack off. It never takes long; just a handful (oh haha) of tight squeezes and I come, so long and hard I bare my clenched teeth.

I snarl at myself becasue I hate myself. And sometimes I cry, still with that fierce grimace on my face. The salt stings.

Sometimes I wonder if there's a point to it all; traveling damn near four thousand kilometres to escape Itachi humiliating me in person, just to have him do the _same fucking thing_ with his absence.

I remember him and think "Where are you?". Not here, that's almost for certain. Itachi barely ever takes trips to Kumo; his company has no large branches here. He hasn't been here more twice in as many years. A major reason why I chose this place.

What are you doing? Or is it better to say, _who _are you doing? He's the reason I have no female friends, few male ones. He's fucked with them all. Even my old teachers from high school; Kakashi, Kurenai, even the old-principal-lady Tsunade. My ex is a granny-shagger.

How do I know? He told me himself.

I recall all this and scrub myself even harder, with a pumice stone, _all over_, until my skin is broken in some places, and weals form from my scraping fingernails.

Having that body, tainted with the fluids and smells and popped-cherry blood of others touch mine, even in my mind, makes me feel _sick_. If only I could pop my skull open and douse my brain with acid to clean, eat up all the corruption of Itachi on my brain.

Goddamn him. _Goddamn him._

Sunday, October 20th:

The days are ticking. So slowly, I don't know how, but they are. I fell alseep on the cushy indigo sofa again. I can't help it. Its big, sucking softness is close and comforting.

My mood swings are still terrible, but the tears have stopped. Sometime last night, as I blew my nose on the second-last tissue paper from my second-last tissue box; they just dried up like a rusty leaking tap finally squeaking shut.

After spending hours and hours, days sobbing, sometimes soft and almost serene; at other times so violently that I bit my own tongue and felt weak from dehydration.

I wouldn't call what I felt _relief_ exactly. In fact, I had no idea what sensation was going through my body. All I was sure of was the feeling of my voicebox cracking open, like when I was fourteen and my voice finally broke.

Why was it still humiliating even though no one could hear my shrill whistle of a voice? Of course, because someone _was _watching: my ex-lover, aka slender man, was right there. In his own way, he followed me, so his presence is with me, _ingrained_ in _me_, no matter how many one-hour scrubbings I performed.

Still I kept at it, until even cold water burned my raw skin. But it was useless; a waste of soap and water and salty blood. The filthy feeling was _inside _me. It was in my own head, the one thing that will always be with me.

And as I washed, these memories just keep tumbling into my empty head, like fallen leaves gusting through an open window, on a night with no stars.

Isn't the mind like that? A pile of memory-leaves raked in the grass, some green and freshly-made, some brown and crumbling with age. And when they're kicked up by some careless kid called Whim who just doesn't give a damn, they scatter all over in a hopeless mess.

And then someone has to come and clean them up again.

That's what I was trying to do; pick up the shaky membrane pieces - by blasting the leaves into further disarry with a giant leafblower. I read somewhere that the it's best to let it all out when you're in pain. Weep unrestrained, and you heal better. I'm already damaged, why not finish the job and just completely dismantle myself, is what I think.

So when the memories wished to, I let them come and fuck me up.

And afterwards, like a ritual, I'd go find the Band-Aids in the top left drawer of the dining room credenza. I'd wonder what such a classic piece of furniture was doing in the midst of all this modern decor. And then I'd let my mind wonder why Sasuke keeps so many of them in there.

Letting myself wonder what he would need them for... and sure enough the memory of the First Time would come.

Of me meeting Sakura in the elevator at Itachi's condo, and seeing the carpet-burns on her knees. She also lived in his building; on the seventh floor. He lived in the penthouse. And the elevator had been going down.

That thought, those red marks, and the furtive, shifty look in her eye, they had made me uneasy.

But being my gullible trusting self, I had squashed that gut-feeling like a pancake. It was obvious she had visited him; they were friends, after all. Why should I have been suspicious?

She was the one who pushed me to ask him out when she caught me staring at him. She had _introduced us_. She _supported _our relationship. I'd never have believed in a million years that she had gotten _those_, from doing _that_, with _my _then-boyfriend... if Itachi had not confirmed it himself.

And that was always enough to fell me. I crumpled to a heap on the carpet, with my head knocking against the end table, crushed. Crying my eyes out, until I couldn't even see.

Mindshots of greeting him as I came out of the elevator, looking at the beauty spot on _his _collarbone when I get close, showing because he's shirtless. The multicoloured koi twisting in the clear dark water of _his _giant fishtank as he gave me his crooked little grin, like nothing was amiss...

Countless memories like that, that I'm too exhausted to think of now. I've let loss starve me, rob me of sleep, then haunt my dreams and kill my ability to function, with a single crystal thought in my mind: Lament until you can't do it anymore.

I've finally reached that objective. And now that I can't... cry any more... it's suddenly frightening.

The finality of it all has finally sunk in. I've reached the point of no return...and I'm so scared. The tears won't come out anymore. They were something familiar to hold on to in this foreign landscape. My cheeks miss their wetness.

So I've taken up a new interest; doing a little spring cleaning.

At first glance, there doesn't seem to be much to do, as Sasuke had thid place cleaned to prepare for my arrival. But first impressions can be highly deceptive, I've come to learn.

Passing my glowing bony fingers across the surface of the stool next to the sofa, I see a brown dusting coating my fingerprints. Absolutely filthy.

Scrambling up, I head to the little storeroom beside the pantry to scout up some cleaning materials. And I'm not surprised to see the vast array of bleach and fragrant laundry soap and multi-floor cleaner sitting on the warm cherrywood shelves.

Sasuke thinks of everything; that lovable, insufferable bastid.

But I have no time to be thinking about him while I'm living in a pigsty. Deciding I might as well start in here, I take down everything from the shelves. When that's done I roll up my sleeves, fill a basin with warm water and a little Handy Andy, dip and wring a new rag, and I start wiping down the bare shelves.

And so I clean the house from the bottom up.

After the surfaces and objects in the house are all wiped up, I make 'em shine. Polishing the wooden surfaces with wax, and just buffing everything else. Then I do the toilets. Then the floors. Then the windows. I even air out the mattresses and wash the curtains.

Until finally, after several hours of back-breaking, mind-numbing work, all the surfaces, the nooks and crannies of this house are shiny and glow-polished. My knees feel hard and sore, muscles are burning and creaky, and my hands are sweltering in the humid climate of their rubber gloves, but I feel...lighter. Maybe not better, but less heavy.

And as I set the buffed-down pail I was using back in its place, I'm pleased at the way it glows in the smooth white light streaming through the single window. I'm surprised at how industrious I am.

At one point during my overzealous cleaning spree, I found myself consumed with the desire to rid myself of all that reminds me of my old home. After rewashing all my clothes and scrubbing my shoes, I felt the urge to just pitch them in the dump. Or burning them to ash in the huge fireplace.

The smell, and feel of Konoha is so deeply imbedded in their threads it almost makes me ill.

My favourite lemon-yellow tee shirt smells like its buttery sunshine. The rope on my blue crystal necklace reminds me of the viny trees. My moss green shorts feel soft and familiar as its apple-tasting grass. It's all just...to painful. Remembering.

But I thought better of it. Why lay waste to clothes that are still decent? Because throwing everything away, because I can just _feels_ wrong.

So here I am, venturing out onto the street for the first time in _days_, with my stuff slung over my shoulder in two surprisingly heavy duffel bags.

Down the gently sloping road, with the city nestled cosy in the valley before me, headed to the local Salvation Army I saw on the way up here.

The air still seems too thin to my lungs; I'm struggling a bit to catch my breath, but I guess I'll grow acclimatised to the high altitude eventually. My arms and back hurt as well; it was not a good idea to start lifting heavy things in my weakened state, just because of a whim. But then, I always have been an impulsive, overconfident git. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson by now...

But there's no going back. I'll have to keep walking, even if my body's burning and I want to quit.

Even if it's a stupid mistake; I never do things by halves.

I feel empty and hollow, and it's terrible; I know I'm going to be upset when I give this stuff away. I don't want to at all; I have to. And after that I'm gonna have to go shopping for new stuff, which will be even worse because I haven't looked in the mirror in ages.

I don't know what I'll see when I'm trying them on.

I can't do it, I can't. I know this. But somehow, I'm doing it anyway. Somehow, by the skin of my teeth I'm holding on to... whatever it is I have left. And I wonder if it's enough.

Monday, October 21st:

For the first time in days (god, I think I'm saying that too often) I switch on my phone. And as if on cue my ears are drowning in the sea of my wolf-whistle ringtone.

"How are you feeling, honey?"

How am I feeling? I feel _violated_ by you, Mama. Why are you doing this to me; at this of all times?

"How do you think I feel?" even through my voice filter, my tone is still laced with a bit of that fuck-you razor edge.

Yeah, it's rude, I know, and I don't care. Don't ask me stupid questions like you think you don't know me, because _you do_. Like _he _knew and pretended to be oblivious.

Then there's a short pause...

_Wait for it..._

"Have you been eating?" she blurts out.

"Yes," it's not a lie.

"How much, how often?"

"...Enough."

"And just how much is _enough_?' ah, Mama, that's the trigger word. You know that's my trigger word.

How many times have I kept her up through the night with my helpless bawling and paroxysms of _ouch_, excluding my childhood, when it was okay?

How many times has she asked me _that_ _same_ _question; _on the phone while I'm trying not to break down in the subway, public bathroom, that memory-filled park; or in person, having it nearly screamed at me over her kitchen sink, from the passenger seat of my car, from behind the barricaded front door of Itachi's condo as I cowered under the glass coffee table and stared tearily at the goddamn _fish_?

_How much is __**enough**__?_

"Enough is enough," the very same words I had answered her with, one day, _finally_.

"Naruto,"

"Mama... "

"How are you _feeling_?" she's dropping all pretense. And it's about time she did.

"Like a quitter." she falls dead silent with a sharp intake of breath.

"Don't start - "

"No,don't _you _start," I snap like a neck bone, "I feel like a total failure, for not getting such a _simple_ _thing_ right,"

"A relationship is far from simple and you know it," she says testily, "and you did everything you could to - "

"No, I didn't Mama. I did jackshit to save that relationship. In fact, I only made things _worse_ by not trying to stop him, because I was _so_ _scared_ he'd leave me. I was a fucking _coward _Mama, always running away. Even up to now, I'm _still_ running away."

"Walking away from a destructive relationship isn't being cowardly at all, Naruto! No one can ever blame you for leaving behind something that was _killing you_. What that man has done to you is disgusting, thank god you finally left him."

"At least one of us is happy about it," I choke wetly. Where are these words coming from?

"You mean to say you were _happy _being abused like that? Is that what you're telling me?" she's beginning to sound hysterical, and I'm starting to feel like I'm losing my mind; one chip of happy memory and dignity at a time.

" Oh, I don't know about _happy_; all I know is that nothing's _changed_ since then. I'm still crying every single day, I'm still going mad and having nightmares, I still obsess about who he's _fucking_ behind my back all the time! _Nothing has changed_, _Mama_. The only thing different about this situation is that now I'm doing it all alone..."

The words; my terrible speech suddenly clings to my throat like saran wrap. I can hear her tears; shock, _horror_, I can hear them.

My Mama, who _never _cries, is sniffling like a two-year-old.

And the phone falls from my hotly buzzing, shaky fingers. The battery flies out as it strikes the floor;_ sharp_,_ explode_!

I'm so sorry, Mama; I'm sorry I'm a bad boy who makes you upset and pushes you away when I need you near the most. I wish I was honest enough to tell her...

That I wish she was close enough for me to feel the power of her pummeling fists, vibrant pink at the knuckles from her passions and her _life_. That I miss her already. That I miss Papa; and the way his hand always seems to fit perfectly at the juncture of my neck and shoulder, always feeling just the same no matter how big I grow. With his precious stone eyes and his sunlight spikes and that white-gold _smile_.

He just has thisradiance I'll never hold a candle to; a magnetism that only draws in magnificent beings like Mama.

But me? I'm only a faded knockoff created from the super-glued remains of Papa's mould because god had broken it and realized his dreadful mistake.

I'm just so full of cracks and holes and missing chips that I have to conceal with my endless blinding smiles. Most people are warded off in fear for their eyesight. And thus I only attract shadow-men who are smart enough to wear sunglasses to cut off the glare and see right through me.

Men like Itachi. Who is humiliating me _once again_; for the nth time.

So once again I bury my face in my hands, hiding my twisted face from the prying eyes of nobody, and I cry. I cry and I sob because these people have stripped the thick, protective layer of dust smothering the pages of my memory books in a few devastating puffs of breath. And the fine, burning dust scratches my nostrils and stings in my throat.

And it feels so fucking _painful_! Don't they get it, any _one _of them? Can't they let me have this one bit of safety; let me have this little blue security blanket I should be far too old to have any business wanting, needing so sorely?

It's not at all fun to have your skin peeled of and the meat stripped from your ribs with butcher sabres and have your beating, aching heart ravaged with love-rot laid bare for the entire world to see. Because I _know _I am that obvious, that easy to tear down.

Me, who's always worn my heart on my sleeve; never once thinking that it might slip right off onto the hard gunky ground and get pierced full of ragged holes by the red-hot soled stilettos of my ex's various _amours_.

I _know_ it's all my fault for being so, so stupid. I don't need them to remind me.

I sob and cry even harder because I had thought I was over this. I weep until it's seems it's too painful for me to be shedding mere water tears; and I must be crying blood.

Twin streams of red trickling thickly down my cheeks; like my Mama's luscious habanero hair; like the lava of an erupting Vesuvius. Like the red thread of fate forever tying _his_ ankle to the source of my tears; and yanking out the struts of the dam everytime _he_ raises his Achilles to climb onto bed or backseat or Mount Olympos itself to join yet another partner in epic coitus.

"Goddamn you, all of you..."

.

Wednesday, October 23rd

"Uzumaki-san, shall I proceed to show you our collection of fossils?"

Ah... my jaw feels a little too slack to answer right away. I'm still not over just how _gorgeous_ Mabui is, with her platinum hair and her viridian eyes.

Looking at her makes my teeth ache; and makes my joints dissolve in _excruciating _relief. Reacting this way to someone who doesn't _remotely_ resemble my ex... it's sort of comforting.

Because lately, I've gotten to thinking; that I'd live out the rest of my life like a tree stump struck by lightning.

I'd be sitting there in the middle of the living room floor staring at the huge empty fishtank devoid of koi and black water and Itachi's pretty head blocking my view of it - and I would daydream.

Sometimes I would swear that my hardening, unflexing muscles were beginning to knot and petrify into split, charring wood. And my toenails - my toes would start growing and stretching out and cracking through the floorboards, so I'm rooted to the spot. Just sitting and thinking for so long that words lose their meaning and all I see is thundery black clouds and bleak moors with stagnant radioactive streams of steel bilgewater sludging through them.

Such a place can't support any life; only existence. In that ugly, barren inner landscape of mine without the undeniable force of _his_ beauty to fill it; I could only _exist _as a dead charcoal briquette tree stump.

Thinking like that is really scary. My mind had kept coming up with outlandish ideas:

Like I'd spend the rest of my life trying to fill this torn up patchwork hollow-hole with Itachi-rejects; start having erections because of every dark-haired, fair-skinned person I come across; shag and carouse with a string of substitutes until I'm old and ugly and they all run away like mad. Then I'll eventually go bonkers and go live as an hermit in the mountains with only my Uchiha-style voodoo dolls and a shitload of pins to keep me company... wondering why I didn't just go asexual in the first place.

Crazy shit like that.

Until laying eyes on Mabui for the first time nearly knocked the brain-stuffing out of my head. And now, seeing her framed by the wide, airy window with emerald trees and life blurring behind her; I'm realizing a few things.

That I'm not exclusively attracted to people of a certain colouring; I'm not Itachi-sexual. I don't have a type. Or rather, I _do _have one, but it isn't limited to a particular shade of hair or tint of flesh; I'm drawn to people who exude exquisite beauty. Just like everyone else on this planet.

There's nothing special about that - maybe not even about me. And I don't know why, but this thought is as comforting as it is nauseating.

"Please, lead the way," and oh _god _her smile is so serene and radiant, just this sweet little curving of her lips. She turns away and gives me a marvelous view of her gorgeous skirt-suited figure.

This is turning out to be a far more pleasant first day than I had ever _hoped_ for. And as I quietly snap my fingers in time with the glorious rythm of her clicking sensible heels, I realize I've just fallen in love -

With the Kumo Paleontological Research Institute.


	5. interlude II

I hereby declare that I claim no rights to **NARUTO © 1999 by Kishimoto Masashi/SHUEISHA Inc. **and receive no monetary benefit for any narrative I publish hereafter based on this manga or any of its other media adaptations.

Warnings are in place for slash (male on male coupling), violence, strong language, graphic sexual content and mature themes.

-Xtase

_I am a woman possessed; I can't stop writing this story. Not only that, I have also managed to write the new chapter of Dance Of The Leaves as well today. I'm so pleased with myself; I haven't updated that fic in __**ages**__. Now on with the show!_

...

TRES

INTERLUDE

.

Do you hear me? I'm talking to you.

.

**Jason Mraz; Lucky**

...

"So, Niisan,"

"Hmm?"

"Does Kaasan really hit like a girl?"

"... "

Itachi waits for Sasuke to cease his infantile verbal jabbing and get down to business. To the _real_ purpose of this phone call.

For he has been expecting to hear from his brother. He has actually been waiting for it, with the patient expectancy of one who _knows _what they are thinking of will come to be.

Just as he had waited for his mother to return from her too-frequent shopping trips. Had waited a day for her to rest up before he_ broke the news_.

He had gone to her; to his parents' home, up the winding staircase, into the parlour, not a soul in sight save for her. His father safely absent, whichwas good. They had their privacy here. Which was good, also.

Because his mother is mortified of making public scenes. He feels she deserves the opportunity to properly vent, to _lash_ _out _as violently as she pleases. For once in her nearly loveless life.

The serene smile of greeting on her face had sent a searing rueful feeling through his heart. Soon her lovely face would be twisted in agony.

But he had long ago summoned up his ironclad resolve; perhaps the only virtue of any worth he possessed.

_Forgive me. I'm going to hurt you..._

He knows, from Sasuke's tight, grim tone that he has hurt her _deeply_.

"She hasn't gotten out of bed in _days_, Niisan. What the fuck did you say to her?"

To this Itachi chuckles softly, his voice coming out thick like treacle.

"I told her about the break-up," yes, _the _break-up. That's what you call the separation that changes your life; such are the demands of its _epic_ status, "I told her the _reasons _for it. Every single transgression I've commited against that relationship. All fifty-seven of them."

And that is only the number of people, not the number of occasions, mind.

_Aren't I revolting_, Itachi thinks in black amusement. It is not a question; but a statement.

Isn't he consummately revolting.

Oh, she had gone ballistic. Apoplectic with _rage_. And she had not slapped him. She had full-on _slugged_ him. Moving so quickly that her hand had not the time to curl into a fully formed fist. She had struck him with all her strength. So hard it felt like his cheekbone had nearly snapped. It may very well have if he hadn't been expecting it, seen it coming in his daydreams for _months_.

He had let his head roll with the blow.

But no amount of mental preparation could fully dull the impact of shock. Of his gentle mother, who had never raised her hand to either of her sons, striking him. Making the blood well up in his mouth.

Even now he's not sure if his eyes had been watering from just the physical sting of that strike.

"You're no son of mine!"

She had screeched at him like a banshee from hell. Spittle flying from her lips, wild roses growing on her ashen cheeks, clawed hands and talon nails tearing at her hair. She demanded that he left; banished him from her presence to the edge of the styx for all she cared.

Itachi remembers her livid skin shining like a dopefiend's after their latest hit. Recalls vividly the manner in which she had sunk to the Iranian carpet below in helpless repose. And the shimmering folds of her dress had billowed around her legs, her breasts. Just as Ophelia had in the river, his mother seemed to be drowning in the heavy depths of this thick-piled rug, amongst its silk-woven flowers.

He remembers drowning in her wrathful wails of despair as he had turned away from her. He remembers thinking with a wicked grin on his lips and tears brimming in his eyes: _this is the reality_.

"You're a dick, Niisan." Sasuke says simply.

"... "

"You're the biggest tit I've ever seen."

"Are you going to get to the point while we're still young, Sasuke?"

"You knew, Niisan. You _knew_." he accuses sombrely.

"About how badly she'd take it?"

"About _everything_, Niisan. I _know_ you. You're like a fucking soothsayer or something. So tell me, how long have you seen this coming; months, years in advance; the day you met Naruto maybe? How long have you been lying?"

"I think you may be exaggerating the extent of my insight."

He hears Sasuke make some scoffing sound.

"Fine, you don't have answer that. But don't deny that you knew it was over way before he dumped your ass,"

A pause.

"I knew," he says to the thick silence, "I led him on for a long time. Longer than I think he realizes. I..." he struggles to find the words that will lead him to the truth. Tries to wrestle his lying tongue into submission and say what he really thinks. He owes at least that much.

Taking a breath, he continues, carefully:

"I managed to fool the both of us for a while. Until after nearly a year I finally woke up and saw that I was really only doing it for me. But by that time it was too late. He was already - "

"Hooked," Sasuke finishes for him.

"Yes," he smiles tepidly at the insinuation," you could say he was _hooked_," it was not what Itachi had been about to say, but an apt description nontheless.

"You didn't care,"

"No...I didn't. Not the way I should have."

And he presses on with his sordid confession.

"I knew I couldn't suddenly cut myself off from him though. But I suppose that would have been the kinder thing to do instead." oh, but he loathes confrontation. Has a bad history with it... and his brother knows this. They need not mention it aloud.

"So I decided...not to stop myself anymore. Whoever I fancied, whatever caught my eye...I stopped trying to ignore my impulses. I never bothered to cover up my tracks; I _wanted_ him to find out. I didn't want it to be about me anymore. From then on it was about him. All those affairs and the debauchery, all of it, was solely for his sake; not for my own pleasure..." never to hurt Naruto; not the way he thinks.

For his own good - always.

_So you don't have me holding you back anymore._

"You need a psychiatrist." Sasuke says. It isn't a joke; he is dead serious.

"Tousan would not like that," Itachi lilts as the amusing thought hits his brain.

Oh no, he will not like that at all. His eldest son, his pride and joy, going kerflooey in his head and seeing - gasp - a _headshrinker_?

Bunkum! He will not allow such a gross transgression against his Uchiha Pride.

The idea of soiling that so-called "Pride" is strangely appealing.

Air out the musty, bloody linen with the cum-stained mattresses right under the sunlit, butterfly-specked sky; Itachi has seen the glory.

He has seen tomorrow.

And their future is a gaggle of skeletons marching out of their giant family closet straight out the front door; parading the bleach of their bones and the blackness of their eye-pits to the laughing masses.

Itachi sees the world as they know it being flipped on its ear.

And his exquisitely shaped lips curve in a serene smile.


End file.
